METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR JUDGING NECESSITY OF PERFORMING INTEGRATION TEST

Whether or not an integration test between or among software components is necessary is judged. Corresponding information between features is acquired, which configures a feature model expressing characteristics of a group of products produced by the software product line, and a type and variations of each software component. For each software component, a set of state variables of all of the features corresponding to the software components is produced based on the corresponding information. For each software component, a specific logical formula is produced. Two or more software components are designated. A necessity judgment formula is produced by logical-product combining all the specific judgment formulas, for the software components designated. It is judged that the integration test is necessary when the necessity judgment formula always shows FALSE (inconsistent formula) and not necessary when the necessity judgment formula shows unclearness as to TRUE or FALSE, or always shows TRUE (valid formula).